Sheep feed on grass on a parched patch of land in Ninh Thuan province as drought rages in the south central locality. (Photo: VNA) Quang Nam (VNS/VNA) - This time last year, manyparts of the central region were submerged under floodwater, but this year’s unusualaridity in the middle of the rainy season offers little solace.
Hydropower reservoirs stationed upstream of the network ofrivers crisscrossing the region are barely scraping by as water levels drop tonear the operational minimum, while in downstream areas, locals are strugglingto stave off aggressive salt intrusion.
“For the past three months, there has not been one noteworthyspell of rain,” said Briu Liec, Secretary of the Party Committee of Tay Giang,a mountainous district in the south-central province of Quang Nam near thecountry’s border with Laos.
Liec told Tuoi tre (Youth) newspaper that he hasnot seen these strange weather conditions in years, as heavy rainfall usuallyarrives in this district as early as August.
According to Ngo Xuan The, Deputy Director of A Vuonghydropower plant on the A Vuong-Bung river in Tay Giang, 2018 witnessed theworst drought in the last four decades.
The decision to build the hydropower plant at this preciselocation was made based on the hydrological records of the A Vuong river basinsince 1977, but “never before has the water shortage been as serious and in themiddle of the rainy season, no less,” The said.
Towards the end of August, the plant began discharging waterfrom its reservoir, expecting an influx in the rainy season that was justaround the corner, but as September came and then October, downpours were conspicuousin their absence.
Similarly, Dak Mi hydropower plant in Phuoc Son district isoperating at below the minimum water level of 240m, while last year, the levelreached 258m, crippling its electricity generation activities and disruptingits schedule to discharge water from the reservoir for downstream use.
Song Tranh 2 plant on the Thu Bon River of Quang Nam iscurrently running a few hours a day, way below its designed capacity as waterlevels dropped to 150m, down by 15-22m compared to the same period last year.
The upstream hydropower plants have issued notices to QuangNam and Da Nang authorities, telling them to have “a reasonable plan of wateruse” as the forecasted shortage is not letting up anytime soon.
Meanwhile, downstream, local people are reeling from thewater shortage as hydropower plants are hogging all the water upstream.
Citizens of the central coastal city of Da Nang complainedthat the tap water has been running dry as salt intrusion drives a wrench intothe operation of the Cau Do water factory.
Da Nang authorities said that on October 29, the salt levelof the water body where the Cau Do factory draws its supply from reached ashigh as 1,082mg/l, while the permitted standard for tap water hovers around250mg/l.
Dropping water levels also renders the pumps inoperable,exacerbating the thirst.
The Da Nang People’s Committee has been asking the Ministryof Environment and Natural Resources to order water releases from thehydropower plants’ reservoirs in the upstream areas, so as to keep the waterlevel at the An Trach dam on Yen River running through Da Nang city at aminimum of 1.4m to ensure uninterrupted operation of the Cau Do factory.
Hoang Thanh Hoa, Deputy Director of Da Nang’s agriculturedepartment said that only a third of Dong Nghe reservoir’s designed capacity of17 million cu.m – the largest in the city – is filled. The same is happening to20 other lakes of various sizes across the city, he said.
As water levels across all streams in the province arefalling sharply, Quang Nam’s 39,000ha of rice and 13,000ha of crops run therisk of lower output as the pressure of salt intrusion mounts.
“Without rain or floodwater and the nutrient-rich alluviumthey bring, the winter-spring crop season would be seriously affected, not tomention pests and rodents would thrive,” Nguyen The Hung, Vice Chairman of theHoi An People’s Committee.
Le Thanh Hai, Deputy Director of the National Centre forHydro-Meteorological Forecasting, attributed the current shortage to a deficitof rain and storms.
On average, each year there should be 10-12 typhoons hittingthe East Sea, with about half of them making landfall in Vietnam, however, withjust nearly 2 months till the end of the year, there have been only sevenstorms so far.
“Tropical storms are destructive forces that can causeserious devastation. That’s why every time a typhoon weakens before hitting thecoastline it is considered lucky,” Hai said.
“With that being said, as much as 40 percent of the rainfallin the country is brought about by storms or tropical depressions. Storms notmaking landfall, therefore, means we lose out on a significant source of water.”
According to data, in September and October, the two peakmonths of the central region’s rainy season, the combined rainfall reached just50-70 percent of the multi-year average figure, with the forecast for the lasttwo remaining months of the year not any more hopeful.
In addition, it’s predicted with 60-70 percent certainty that ElNiño is making a comeback to Vietnam at the end of 2018 and early 2019,engulfing the otherwise flood-prone central region in a long drought withlittle reprieve in the months to come.-VNS/VNA
VNA